Dead Palestinian boy’s Sacramento relatives speak

The Sacramento relatives of a Palestinian boy kidnapped and killed in Jerusalem told local reporters that he was a happy teenager.

Earlier this week, 16-year-old Muhammad Hussein Abu Khdeir’s burned body was found in Jerusalem. Israeli police are investigating whether it was a revenge killing.

On Monday, the bodies of three murdered Israeli teenagers, who were abducted last month, were found by Israeli soldiers.

“He loved to tell jokes and riddles; he was never serious. In all the pictures we have of him he was making a goofy face,” Wadha Abukhdeir, the boy’s first cousin, told the Sacramento Bee.

“My cousin Mohammed was just a boy, just a 16-year-old boy barely on the cusp of manhood. And they took away his life,” Abukhdeir told KXTV in Sacramento.

The Sacramento Valley chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations said the relatives were planning an interfaith memorial service at 8 p.m. Thursday at the SALAM Center at 4541 College Oak Dr. in Sacramento.

The family will begin receiving condolences at 7:30 p.m., and the service will conclude with a traditional Ramadan fast-breaking meal and prayers at 8:30 p.m.